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US-backed Saudi plans to destabilise Iran threaten to substantially worsen security in the already troubled Pakistani province of Balochistan, a key maritime and land node in China’s Belt and Road Initiative.

Saudi Arabia, emboldened by US President Donald Trump’s visit to the kingdom this month and his embrace of its view of Iran as one of the world’s foremost terrorist threats, sees Iran’s ethnic minorities as a way of destabilising the Islamic republic, if not toppling its government.

Balochistan, a volatile, once independent, inhospitable and difficult to access expanse that straddles the Iranian-Pakistani border, looms large in the Saudi plans. Home to the Chinese-backed port of Gwadar, 600km east of the world’s biggest energy choke point, the Strait of Hormuz, Balochistan has long been troubled by a low level nationalist insurgency. To counter this, Pakistan has backed religious militants, who also enjoy Riyadh’s support.

US President Donald Trump, accompanied by First Lady Melania Trump, and Saudi Arabia’s King Salman bin Abdulaziz al-Saud arrive for a reception ahead of a banquet at Murabba Palace in Riyadh. Photo: AFP

A vital cog in the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), a US$56 billion Chinese-funded project to shorten the distance that oil travels from the Gulf to China and further economic development in China’s restive north-western province of Xinjiang, Gwadar has struggled to get off the ground since it was first inaugurated nine years ago.

Baloch nationalists in Balochistan have vowed to thwart CPEC. “This conspiratorial plan is not acceptable to the Baloch people under any circumstances. Baloch independence movements have made it clear several times that they will not abandon their people’s future in the name of development projects or even democracy,” said Baloch Liberation Army spokesman Jeander Baloch.

Baloch spoke after two attacks this month by different groups, one targeting workers toiling on CPEC-related projects, the other targeting Senator Abdul Ghafoor Haideri, the deputy chairman of the Pakistani upper house of parliament, and a member of Jamiat e Ulema Islam, a right-wing Sunni Islamist party that is part of Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif’s coalition government.

Armed men posing as police have since kidnapped two Chinese teachers in the Baloch capital of Quetta.

This month’s attacks were likely unrelated to potential Saudi efforts to foment ethnic unrest among Balochs on the Iranian side of the border but serve as warnings of the possible impact on Pakistani Balochistan and CPEC if the kingdom moves ahead with its plan. They also raise the spectre of drawing India into the Saudi-Iranian conflict. Saudi’s fomenting of unrest in Iran’s neighbouring Sistan and Baluchistan province would likely target the Indian-backed Iranian port of Chabahar, 70km west of Gwadar.

Saudi Deputy Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, on the eve of Trump’s visit, warned the battle with the Islamic republic would be fought “inside Iran, not in Saudi Arabia”. The remarks followed a statement by General Joseph Voltel, head of US Central Command, that appeared to hold out the possibility of exploiting aspirations of ethnic minorities in Iran to weaken its Islamic regime.

Saudi Arabia initially signalled its support for Iranian dissidents when last July former Saudi intelligence chief and ambassador to the US and Britain, Prince Turki al-Faisal, attended a rally in Paris organised by the exiled People’s Mujahideen Organisation of Iran or Mujahideen-e-Khalq, a militant left-wing group that advocates the overthrow of Iran’s Islamic regime. “Your legitimate struggle against the regime will achieve its goal, sooner or later. I, too, want the fall of the regime,” Prince Turki told the rally.

Bodies of the victims of an attack on a passenger bus in Mastung area, are shifted to a hospital in Quetta, Balochistan province, Pakistan. At least 19 passengers were killed when unknown gunmen stopped two passenger buses in Mastung. Photo: EPA

Prince Mohammed did not spell out how he intended to take Saudi Arabia’s fight to Iran, but a Saudi government-backed think tank, the Arabian Gulf Centre for Iranian Studies argued in a recent study that Chabahar posed “a direct threat to the Arab Gulf states” that called for “immediate counter measures”.

Written by Mohammed Hassan Husseinbor, an Iranian of Baloch origin, the study said Chabahar posed a threat because it would enable Iran to increase market share in India for its oil exports at the expense of Saudi Arabia, raise foreign investment in the Islamic republic and increase government revenues, and allow Iran to project power in the Gulf and the Indian Ocean.

Husseinbor acknowledged his study had been published “with tacit [Saudi] government consent. “Everything goes through censorship. The Saudis are looking for people who can publish things independent of the Iranian mullahs. They told me they are very sympathetic to the Baloch in Iran but sensitive to Pakistani concerns ... The Saudis are very interested ... Things will definitely heat up in the next year,” he said.

In his study, Husseinbor argued that “Saudis could persuade Pakistan to soften its opposition to potential Saudi support for the Iranian Baluch [of Sistan and Baluchestan]”. Noting the vast expanses of Sistan and Baluchestan Province, Husseinbor went on to say that “it would be a formidable challenge, if not impossible, for the Iranian government to protect such long distances and secure Chabahar in the face of widespread Baluch opposition, particularly if this opposition is supported by Iran’s regional adversaries and world powers”.

The conservative Washington-based Hudson Institute, which is believed to have developed close ties to the Trump administration, took up the theme of ethnic minorities in Iran in a seminar earlier this month that featured Baloch, Iranian Arab, Iranian Kurdish and Iranian Azerbaijani nationalists as speakers.

Saudi Arabia may already have the building blocks for a proxy war in Balochistan. Saudi-funded ultraconservative Sunni Muslim madrassas operated by anti-Shiite militants dominate Balochistan’s educational landscape. Iran has accused the United States, Saudi Arabia and Pakistani intelligence of supporting anti-Iranian militants in Balochistan, including Jaish al-Adly, an offshoot of Sipah that claimed responsibility for the killing in April of 10 Iranian border guards.

The spectre of ethnic proxy wars could blow a huge hole into CPEC and the Belt and Road that China may find hard to fill. China’s tacit support of Pakistan’s use of militant proxies to counter Baloch nationalists and needle India by preventing Pakistani militants from being designated by the United Nations Security Council as terrorists further complicates matters.

Fuelling ethnic tensions in the Islamic republic risks Iran responding in kind. Saudi Arabia has long accused Iran of instigating low level violence and protests in its predominantly Shiite, oil-rich Eastern Province as well as being behind the brutally squashed popular revolt in majority Shiite Bahrain and intermittent violence since. Fomenting unrest in Sistan and Baluchistan could spark a tit-for-tat struggle not only in Pakistan but the kingdom itself that could further jeopardise China’s efforts to secure energy resources and implant its footprint across Eurasia and the Middle East. ■

Cracks have appeared in a Saudi-led, US-backed
anti-terrorist political and military alliance days after US President Donald
J. Trump ended a historic visit to Saudi Arabia. The cracks stem from Qatar’s long-standing
fundamental policy differences with Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates
about Iran and the role of political Islam.

Seemingly emboldened by Mr. Trump’s blanket
endorsement of Saudi Arabia’s proxy war against Iran and UAE Crown Prince
Mohammed bin Zayed visceral opposition to political Islam, Gulf states appear
to believe that the time is right to again pressure Qatar to alter policies
it sees as key to its national security. The crown prince reportedly
maintains a close working relationship with powerful Saudi Deputy Crown Prince
Mohammed bin Salman.

An earlier attempt by Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Bahrain to
force Qatar to align itself with the three states’ hard line positions failed
in 2014 when Qatar refused to bow after they withdrew
their ambassadors from Doha. The ambassadors returned to their posts after
a 10-month absence with little, if any, change in Qatari policies.

The policy differences have rekindled a long-standing rift
within the six-nation Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC), the regional association
that groups Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Qatar, Bahrain, Kuwait and Oman that is rooted
in geography and history. Qatar unlike other Gulf states shares
the world’s

The differences reflect concern among many non-Arab members
of the Saudi-led, 41-Muslim nation military alliance that the grouping is
becoming an anti-Iranian grouping rather than one focused on combatting
jihadism. They also erupted at a moment that Saudi Arabia is looking at
attempting to
destabilize Iran by fomenting unrest among the Islamic republic’s ethnic
minorities – a move that worries Pakistan and other coalition members.

Qatar’s ability to mediate in conflicts involving militant
groups like the Taliban and various jihadist groups is a pillar of its troubled
effort to project soft power. Its relationship with controversial groups like
the Muslim Brotherhood is strategic and goes back to the founding of the Gulf
state. The Brotherhood populated key educational and government institutions in
Qatar and other Gulf states at a time that they did not have needed
professionals of their own.

In Qatar, a country sandwiched between regional giants Saudi
Arabia and Iran, both of whom it views as potential threats, the Brotherhood, however,
offered something far more strategic: the ability to chart a course of its own.
Looking at Saudi Arabia’s power sharing agreement that empowers an
ultra-conservative Sunni Muslim religious elite, Qatar used the Brotherhood to
avoid falling into what it saw as a Saudi trap.

As a result, Qatar has no powerful religious establishment
of its own. Its most prominent Islamic scholar, Sheikh Yusuf Qaradawi, is a
naturalized Qatari citizen of Egyptian origin who is associated with the
Brotherhood. Qatar’s ruling Al Thani family retains absolute power that it does
not have to share.

In one of many contradictions in Qatari policy, Qatar unlike
other Gulf states and despite being an autocracy, supported the anti-autocratic
popular Arab revolts of 2011, and backed Islamist forces like the Brotherhood
in Egypt. Its support explains why Egypt this month joined Saudi Arabia and the
UAE in blocking Qatari-backed websites and broadcasts like Al Jazeera and The
Huffington Post’s Arabic edition.

Qatar, along with Saudi Arabia the world’s only country that
adheres to Wahhabism, a puritan, intolerant interpretation of Islam, has had
strained relations with Egypt since general-turned-president Abdel Fattah
Al-Sisi in 2013 toppled Mohammed Morsi in a military coup and brutally cracked
down on the Brotherhood. Mr. Morsi, a Muslim Brother, was Egypt’s first and
only democratically elected president.

The most recent GCC crisis erupted after Qatar charged that
remarks attributed to Qatari emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani that stroked
with Qatari policy and were broadcast by state-run Qatar television as well as
carried by the Gulf state’s official news agency and various Twitter accounts,
were the result of a cyberattack.

Sheikh Tamim was alleged to have suggested that Mr Trump’s
administration could be short lived because of problems at home, questioned the
wisdom of increasing tension with Tehran and defended Islamist groups Hamas, Hezbollah
and the Brotherhood. Qatar has said it is investigating the hack.

In a bid to tarnish Qatar’s already troubled reputation,
Saudi and UAE media gave prominent coverage to the alleged remarks. The two
states’ media outlets rejected
Qatari assertions of a cyberattack. They accused Qatar of having ties
to Al Qaeda and reported that Qatari Foreign Minister Shaikh Mohammad Bin
Abdul Rahman Al Thani had met
secretly in Baghdad with Qasim Soleimani, the commander of the Iranian
Revolutionary Guards’ notorious Al Quds Force.

Adding fuel to the fire, Robert Gates, a former US defence
secretary and director of central intelligence, this week warned at a
Foundation for the Defense of Democracies gathering on Qatar and the
Brotherhood that Qatar risked losing its hosting of US forces at the Al Udeid
Air Base, the largest US military base in the Middle East. “The United States
military doesn’t have any irreplaceable facility,” Mr. Gates said.

Qatar has struggled to downplay the crisis and prove that
the remarks attributed to Sheikh Tamim were fake news. Qatar’s problem is that
it doesn’t matter whether the news was true or fake. The Gulf state is caught
in a Catch-22. It is confronting a concerted Saudi and UAE effort to force it
to align itself with the policies of a majority of the GCC. Qatar is doomed if
it does and doomed if it doesn’t.

Tuesday, May 23, 2017

Two conferences this week spotlight the Muslim world’s
struggle to come to grips with extremism and militancy. The conferences, the Arab-Islamic-American summit in Riyadh
and a gathering in East Java of youth leaders of Nahdlatul Ulama (NU), the
world’s largest Muslim movement, laid bare the difficulty of reforming cultures
in the battle against extremism, called into question the commitment of Muslim
states to combat radicalism and political violence, and put on display US
President Donald J. Trump’s prioritization of commerce at the expense of
principle.

In Yemen, Saudi Arabia’s intervention has given IS rival Al
Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) a new lease on life. Prior to the war,
AQAP had been driven to near irrelevance by the rise of IS and security
crackdowns.

In a report in February, the
International Crisis Group (ICG) concluded that AQAP was “stronger than it
has ever been... In prosecuting the war, the Saudi-led coalition has relegated
confronting AQAP and IS to a second-tier priority… Saudi-led coalition
statements that fighting the group is a top priority and announcements of
military victories against AQAP in the south are belied by events,” the ICG
said.

In a statement
issued by the Riyadh summit attended by representatives of 55 countries, the
leaders vowed “to combat terrorism in all its forms, address its intellectual
roots, dry up its sources of funding and to take all necessary measures to
prevent and combat terrorist crimes.”

It “welcomed the establishment of a global centre for
countering extremist thought to take base in Riyadh, and praised the centre’s
strategic objectives of combating intellectual, media and digital extremism and
promoting coexistence and tolerance among peoples.”

The statement made no reference to Saudi-inspired
ultra-conservatism that propagates a supremacist worldview, encourages
prejudice against Muslim and non-Muslim minorities and that according to many policymakers
and analysts, enables an environment that potentially breeds militancy.

In a nod to Saudi Arabia’s four-decade long proxy war with
Iran that increasingly appears to enjoy Mr. Trump’s endorsement, the statement
paid lip service to confronting “sectarian agendas,” but linked it to
countering “interference in other countries affairs,” a reference to Iranian
support for groups like Lebanon’s Shiite Hezbollah militia, the Houthis in
Yemen, Iraqi Shiite militias fighting IS alongside the Iraqi military, and
Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.

The statement avoided calling on Sunni Muslim
ultra-conservative political and religious leaders to refrain from contributing
to sectarian strife. Saudi Deputy Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman on the eve
of the summit ruled out dialogue with Iran on the grounds
of its religious beliefs.

Prince Mohammed, turning its power struggle into an
existentialist sectarian battle, charged that Iran was planning for the return
of the Imam Mahdi (the redeemer) by seeking to control the Muslim world. Shi'ites
believe that the Mahdi was a descendent of the Prophet Mohammed who went into
hiding 1,000 years ago. They trust that he will return to establish global
Islamic rule before the end of the world.

The NU conference held in the Bahr Ulum Islamic Boarding
School Foundation in Jombang in East Java, the movement’s birthplace, could not
have been more different from the summit. The two-day gathering brought
together top NU leaders and young activists who appeared to be driven by a
sense of apocalypses if they failed to counter extremism in Indonesia.

The activists’ commitment contrasted starkly with that of political
leaders in Riyadh who appeared motivated by political opportunism, power-driven
conflict, and a passion for a photo-op that positions them as being in the
forefront of the struggle against the scourge of political violence. (For
transparency, this writer was invited to address the conference).

Attending the NU conference were members of Barisan Ansor
Multipurpose Nahdlatul Ulama (Banser), an autonomous security unit within the
movement, that confronts militants. In recent incidents, Banser intercepted
convoys of busses of Hizb-ut-Tahrir (HuT), a pan-Islamic group that advocates a
global caliphate.

Banser commander H. Alfa Isnaeni recalled one intercept of a
convoy ferrying HuT supporters to a rally. A majority of people on the busses
were villagers. They were told by military officers, who paid them to board the
busses, that they were travelling to a religious gathering. “Hizb-ut-Tahrir has
successfully targeted the military,” a NU leader said.

In a draft statement scheduled for publication on Wednesday,
the NU conference warned that Muslims need to bridge the gap between teachings
of Islamic orthodoxy and the contemporary Muslim reality. In a reference to
Saudi-inspired ultra-conservatism, the draft asserted that “social and
political instability, civil war and terrorism all arise from the attempt, by
ultra-conservative Muslims, to implement certain elements of fiqh (Islamic
jurisprudence) within a context that is no longer compatible with…classical
norms.”

The statement charged that “various actors—including but not
limited to Iran, Saudi Arabia, ISIS (another acronym for the Islamic State), Al-Qaeda,
Hezbollah, Qatar, the Muslim Brotherhood, the Taliban and Pakistan—cynically
manipulate religious sentiment in their struggle to maintain or acquire political,
economic and military power, and to destroy their enemies. They do so by
drawing upon key elements of classical Islamic law (fiqh), to which they
ascribe divine authority, in order to mobilize support for their worldly goals.”

In a frontal attack on Saudi Arabia, the statement, issued
by a group that was founded almost a century ago in opposition to Wahhabism, Saudi
Arabia’s strand of Sunni Muslim ultra-conservativism, argued that “it is false
and counterproductive to claim that the actions of Al-Qaeda, ISIS, Boko Haram
and other such groups have nothing to do with Islam, or merely represent a
perversion of Islamic teachings. They are, in fact, outgrowths of Wahhabism and
other fundamentalist streams of Sunni Islam…,” the statement said.

“For more than fifty years, Saudi Arabia has systematically
propagated a supremacist, ultraconservative interpretation of Islam among Sunni
Muslim populations worldwide… The Wahhabi view of Islam—which is embraced not
only by Saudi Arabia and Qatar, but also by al-Qaeda and ISIS—is intricately
wedded to those elements of classical Islamic law that foster sectarian hatred
and violence. Wahhabism is characterized by extreme animosity towards Shi’ites.
It is also characterized by antipathy—at times violent—towards Christians,
Jews, Hindus, Buddhists and Sunni Muslims who do not share the Wahhabis’ rigid
and authoritarian view of Islam... Saudi opposition to Iran, ISIS and al-Qaeda
does not and should not absolve it from responsibility for promoting the very
ideology that underlies and animates Sunni extremism and terror,” the statement
went on to say.

There is little doubt about the statement’s sincerity and
its bold willingness to focus Muslim discourse on the need to clean up Islam’s
own house. The conference’s proceedings nonetheless laid bare the fact that NU
still has its own demons to fight.

Conference participants took no notice and failed to counter
a popular Islamic scholar who asserted in remarks pockmarked by sexist jokes
that “digitalisation, globalization and hedonism is the immoral path that Jews
and Christians want us to follow.” To be fair, the moderator of the scholar’s
panel, a human rights activist, took him to task on his gender remarks but not
on his references to Jews and Christians.

Similarly, remarks by a NU leader that appeared to
differentiate between, on the one hand, the use of religion by Saudi Arabia and
Qatar, the world’s only other Wahhabi state, albeit one that practices a more
liberal interpretation of the sect’s teachings, and Iran on the other, went unchallenged.

The NU official couched his assault on the Gulf Arabs in
terms of nation states that exploit Islam opportunistically and warned that
they need to be confronted because they “want to destroy us.” Discussing Iran
however, he referred to Shiism without qualification and cautioned that “if we
don’t fight back they will behead us.”

To confront extremism, Muslim political leaders and
religious groups will not only have to stand up to political manipulation of
their faith, but also to prejudices, conspiracy theories based on ingrained
bias, and implicit as well as explicit supremacism that have long been common
currency across the Muslim world. It is a jihad that is a lot more difficult
than paying lip service and playing politics, but is a prerequisite for
effective countering of extremism and political violence.

Thursday, May 18, 2017

A leaked
long-term plan for China’s massive $56 billion investment in Pakistan
projects the goals of the Beijing’s One Belt, One Road initiative as a ploy for
economic domination, the creation of surveillance states, and allowing China to
shape media landscapes.

It also suggests that China’s concept of economic-win-win
diplomacy amounts to what one China analyst described as a “China wins twice
strategy” that potentially raises the spectre of popular opposition to the
scheme. China has already encountered popular resistance and setbacks in
various Asian countries, including Sri Lanka, Myanmar, and the Pakistani
province of Balochistan, a crown jewel of One Belt, One Road.

Many countries eager to attract Chinese investment, often at
whatever cost, praised One Belt, One Road at this week’s summit
in Beijing attended by 28 heads of state. Nonetheless, critics are questioning
China’s motives.

"China needs to nurture better understanding of its
intentions and visions" for the initiative "to prevent unnecessary
suspicions about its geopolitical ambition," The
Jakarta Post said in an editorial that acknowledged that “we badly need the
huge infrastructure spending that China is bringing.”

Similarly, Singapore’s Straits
Times noted that China had recently used its economic clout to
unsuccessfully pressure South Korea to back away from deployment of a an advanced
US anti-missile system by reducing Chinese tourism and blocking Korean music
videos on streaming services.

Nationalists in Balochistan have vowed to thwart the
Pakistani leg of One Belt, One Road, dubbed the China Pakistan Economic Corridor
(CPEC). "This conspiratorial plan (CPEC) is not acceptable to the Baloch
people under any circumstances. Baloch independence movements have made it
clear several times that they will not abandon their people's future in the
name of development projects or even democracy,” said Baloch
Liberation Army spokesman Jeander Baloch.

Mr. Baloch spoke after two attacks by different groups in
the last 96 hours, one targeting workers toiling on CPEC-related projects, the
other Senator Abdul Ghafoor Haideri, the deputy chairman of the upper house of
parliament, and a member of Jamiat e Ulema Islam, a right-wing Sunni Islamist
political party that is part of Prime Minister Sharif's coalition government.

The attack on the workers exploited widespread discontent
among Baloch that they are not benefitting from massive Chinese investment in
their province that provides employment primarily for workers from elsewhere in
Pakistan. The victims of the attack were from the Pakistani province of Sindh.

While widely condemned, the attack went to the core of
problems with China’s execution of its One Belt, One Road initiative detailed
in the leaked plan for Pakistan. The leaking of the plan, including its
surveillance aspects, coincided with China’s release of the first
public draft of a new intelligence law that gives authorities wide-ranging
powers to monitor suspects, raid premises, and seize vehicles and devices while
investigating domestic and foreign individuals and groups.

Pakistan’s Ministry for Planning, Development, and Reform did not
deny the authenticity of the leaked plan. Instead it insisted that the released
document “delineates the aspirations of both parties” and asserted that parts
of it were “factually
incorrect.” The ministry said that the plan was “a live document” and that
the published version did not reflect what had since been agreed by China and
Pakistan.

Controversy over the leaked document nonetheless highlights
problems that repeatedly arise from China’s lack of transparency when it comes
to One Belt, One Road as well as a desire by governments that hope to benefit
from the initiative to keep secret details that potentially could spark popular
opposition.

The leaked document, even if it is not the most current
version of plans for CPEC, nonetheless reflects China’s
thinking that has been evident not only in Pakistan but also in countries
like Sri Lanka, Myanmar and Tajikistan.

The draft plan detailed not only benefits China would derive
from its investment in Pakistan, but the way Pakistan would be turned even more
than it already is into a surveillance state in which freedoms of expression and
media are manipulated. It also suggested the degree to which One Belt, One Road
is designed to establish China as Eurasia’s dominant power based on economics
as well as adoption of measures that undermine democracy or inhibit political
transition in autocracies.

As part of the deal, Chinese state-owned companies would
lease thousands of hectares of agricultural land to set up “demonstration
projects” in areas ranging from seed varieties to irrigation technology.
Chinese agricultural companies would be offered “free capital and loans” from
various Chinese ministries as well as the China Development Bank.

As part of China’s bid to quell ethnic unrest in Xinjiang
through economic development, the plan envisages the Xinjiang Production and
Construction Corps introducing mechanization as well as new technologies in
Pakistani livestock breeding, development of hybrid varieties, and precision
irrigation. Pakistan effectively would become a raw materials supplier rather
than an added-value producer, a prerequisite for a sustainable textiles industry.

The plan envisages the Pakistani textile sector as a
supplier of materials such as yarn and coarse cloth to textile manufacturers in
Xinjiang. “China can make the most of the Pakistani market in cheap raw
materials to develop the textiles & garments industry and help soak up
surplus labour forces in (Xinjiang’s) Kashgar,” the plan said. Chinese
companies would be offered preferential treatment with regard to “land, tax,
logistics and services” as well as “enterprise income tax, tariff reduction and
exemption and sales tax rate” incentives.

In other economic sectors such as household appliances,
telecommunications and mining, Chinese companies would exploit their presence
to expand market share. In areas like cement, building materials, fertiliser
and agricultural technologies, the plan called for building infrastructure and
developing a policy environment to facilitate the entry of Chinese companies.

A full system of monitoring and surveillance would be built
in Pakistani cities to ensure law and order. The system would involve
deployment of explosive detectors and scanners to “cover major roads,
case-prone areas and crowded places…in urban areas to conduct real-time
monitoring and 24-hour video recording.”

A national fibre optic backbone would be built for internet
traffic as well as the terrestrial distribution of broadcast media that would cooperate
with their Chinese counterparts in the “dissemination of Chinese culture.” The
plan described the backbone as a “cultural transmission carrier” that would
serve to “further enhance mutual understanding between the two peoples and the
traditional friendship between the two countries.”

The plan identifies as risks to CPEC “Pakistani politics,
such as competing parties, religion, tribes, terrorists, and Western
intervention” as well as security. “The security situation is the worst in
recent years,” the plan said. Its solution is stepped up surveillance rather
than policies targeting root causes and appears to question the vibrancy of a
system in which competition between parties and interest groups is the name of
the game.

Pakistan’s Planning Commission tasked with overseeing CPEC
had sought to dampen expectations that Chinese projects would foster employment
and investment even before the leaking of the document. The overseers told the
Pakistani Senate that only Chinese investors would be allowed to invest in the
nine proposed special economic zones across Pakistan and that it was uncertain
whether Pakistan labour would be engaged. The zones would be open exclusively
to Chinese companies. The overseers said Pakistan may not see a revenue
windfall from the massive Chinese engagement.

China’s approach to One Belt, One Road as reflected in the
leaked CPEC plan, is likely to prove to be the Achilles heel of its ambitious
project. The leak demonstrates that the terms of Chinese investment cannot be
kept from the public. The failure to be transparent upfront fuels suspicions and
charges opposition.

More fundamentally, China’s setbacks to date serve as
evidence that One Belt, One Road’s success will depend on popular buy-in in
countries involved. Reinforcing authoritarian governance, including stepped-up
surveillance and Chinese influence in national media, is ultimately likely to
backfire. Stability is a pre-condition for the success of One Belt, One Road.
It is likely to be best achieved by transparency and ensuring that everyone has
a stake in the project rather than secrecy and increased authoritarianism.

Monday, May 15, 2017

When Jibril Rajoub, the head of the Palestinian Football Association, took the stand May 11 at the 67th Congress of the international soccer governing body FIFA, leaders were embarrassed. FIFA President Gianni Infantino’s body language spoke volumes. “This is the fifth time that I address this Congress, and you are saying it is premature to take a decision,” Rajoub said in response to FIFA's postponing a decision on Palestinian demands that six Israeli settlement clubs stop playing in the occupied West Bank. The five-hour general assembly meeting of the soccer federation was broadcast live and has been archived on YouTube.

SUMMARY⎙ PRINTFIFA’s failure to make a decision about its own members' not honoring its statutes reflects the tremendous political pressure that is constantly exerted by Israel on various world bodies.

Rajoub continued his onslaught. “You have punished countries like Nigeria and Kuwait because governments interfered in the operation of the local federations.”

The head of the Palestinian federation rejected the intimidation tactics of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who on May 8 demanded that Infantino remove the Palestinian proposal to ban settlement clubs from the agenda. “Here we have a situation in which the Israeli prime minister is interfering in the decision of this body.”

Infantino, unable on late notice to remove the Palestinian resolution that had been submitted two months earlier, made an end run. Having secured on May 9 a unanimous vote in the executive council to delay the issue for a year, Infantino submitted to the delegates a proposal to make a decision within one year. Palestinian protests that FIFA statutes forbid such last-minute entries did not dissuade the FIFA president, who railroaded his decision through and asked for an immediate vote.

To explain the council decision, Infantino said that they have not yet received the final written report of the FIFA Monitoring Committee on Israel and Palestine, which is headed by Tokyo Sexwale, a former South African government minister. The committee was appointed during the 65th FIFA Congress to avoid a vote on the same issue. The Palestinians withdrew their motion with the hope that Sexwale, a former anti-apartheid leader, would stand up for justice and fairness.

In a May 8 article published on LinkedIn, soccer expert James Dorsey said the FIFA Monitoring Committee’s draft report concludes with what he called imperfect recommendations: “Allow the status quo to continue, give Israel six months to rectify the situation, or continue talks between the Israeli and Palestinian soccer federations.” In his short speech to the 67th Congress, Rajoub seized on the second of Sexwale’s recommendations and told the 199 delegates assembled in Manama that Palestine is willing to give the Israelis a short period of time to end their incursion. “We recommend giving the Israel Football Association until the end of the current season or a maximum of six months to end playing games on Palestinian lands or face the consequences.”

Rajoub said that his proposal was not a political solution. “This is not a political solution but a football one. Politicization would be if this Congress doesn’t accept this idea but allows Israel to continue flagrantly violating Article 14.1.i of the FIFA statutes.”

Despite Rajoub’s passionate pleas and attempts to block the vote on the last-minute motion, the council request to postpone any decision until March 2018 passed with 73% support, which is far less than all other decisions, such as the FIFA budget and the lifting of the ban of Iraqi friendly games, which were approved by votes with more than 90% support.

Susan Shalabi, the vice president of the Palestinian Football Association, told Al-Monitor that the Palestinian delegation was happy to see 50 delegates go against the FIFA leadership. “This means a lot to us and encourages us to keep fighting.” Noteworthy is that voting is confidential, so it is impossible to know who voted which way.

Shalabi insisted that what the FIFA president did at the congress was a violation of its own statues. “The last-minute resolution is totally against what is allowed by the FIFA statutes, which require all delegates enough time to study a resolution before having to vote on it,” Shalabi said, adding that the Palestinian Football Association will be challenging the decision in the Court of Arbitration for Sport.

A press release issued by the Palestinian Football Association shortly after the conclusion of the 67th Congress and obtained by Al-Monitor criticized what it called a legally “ambiguous” decision. “We fear Mr. Infantino's action of today has set a precedent where governments decide the agenda for a FIFA Congress, and violations of the statutes and misuse of its legal devices.”

After the Congress, Infantino spoke again on the issue at a May 11 post-Congress press conference in Manama. He explained that the executive council hasn’t received a written report yet. “I am not happy we didn’t take a decision. We are not the only ones not making a decision.” Infantino said he is optimistic about recent media reports about movements in the peace process. “Hopefully, President [Donald] Trump can find a solution. If he has a good idea, I can take it on board as well for FIFA.”

The failure of an international sports entity to make a decision about its own members' not honoring FIFA statutes once again reflects the tremendous political pressure that is constantly exerted by Israel on various world bodies to accept the Israeli narrative. The fact that Israeli settlements are illegal, which has been stated as such by the UN, the Security Council and the International Criminal Court, doesn’t seem to have much effect. The Israelis are able to use their close relations with Washington to intimidate politicians and organizations to avoid making decisions. The question remains how long FIFA will allow such political intimidation in the sport, which it has repeatedly said should be left to the players and fans to enjoy without political interference.

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James M DorseyWelcome to The Turbulent World of Middle East Soccer by James M. Dorsey, a senior fellow at Nanyang Technological University’s S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies. Soccer in the Middle East and North Africa is played as much on as off the pitch. Stadiums are a symbol of the battle for political freedom; economic opportunity; ethnic, religious and national identity; and gender rights. Alongside the mosque, the stadium was until the Arab revolt erupted in late 2010 the only alternative public space for venting pent-up anger and frustration. It was the training ground in countries like Egypt and Tunisia where militant fans prepared for a day in which their organization and street battle experience would serve them in the showdown with autocratic rulers. Soccer has its own unique thrill – a high-stakes game of cat and mouse between militants and security forces and a struggle for a trophy grander than the FIFA World Cup: the future of a region. This blog explores the role of soccer at a time of transition from autocratic rule to a more open society. It also features James’s daily political comment on the region’s developments. Contact: incoherentblog@gmail.comView my complete profile